Fourth Month: December

Q4. Have you lost something in the December snow?

A4. Yes, the key I needed in order to return.

I have my good days and I have my bad days. Every now and then there’s a break in the blank walls that have become my mind and, like a burst of color, a memory explodes into existence before fading just as quickly. Those are the times that I’m at my happiest, even though the memories never feel real. They always leave me with the sense that I’m watching the film of someone else’s life, disconnected. Still, it’s good to remember, even if it is only for a while.

I don’t remember when it was that I last felt hungry. It’s been years since I ate my last meal, I think. That time, like so much else, remains locked away. Somewhere out there, though, it’s just waiting to be found: the key that I need in order to return. It was the price I had to pay, trading my mind for yours. It’s one that I do not regret, even if I no longer remember who you are. Once I find the key, it will all become clear again. Perhaps I’ll even return to the boy I once was years ago.

All that remains to me now is the snow. In all directions as far as the eye can see, it stretches onward, outward. Colorless, featureless, it offers nothing for me to grab onto, nothing to engage, nothing to help me to remember. Its emptiness forces me to cling to those memories, those reminders of who I once was, even more tightly. And yet, even those slip through my grasping fingers, vanishing again into nothingness, slipping into that wintery wasteland. I’ve even grown to accept the possibility that I’m only reliving a single remembrance over and over again, forgetting each time it passes.

There’s a picture that I find in my pocket from time to time. It helps me to continue forward. There’s a man and a woman with two boys standing together. They look like a family. I want to believe that one of the boys in the picture is me, but I have no way of knowing which one. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a mirror that I’ve forgotten what I once looked like. After years of wandering these white barrens, though, I’m not sure that I’d recognize myself even if I could remember who I once was.

There is one thing I can remember: her eyes staring into me as I sacrificed my mind locking her away. I don’t sleep as often as I should because of those eyes. They wait for me when I’m at my most vulnerable. They remind me every time I drift off that she’s out there still, biding her time within her frozen prison. When I see those eyes, I can’t remember what she did to us, but I know that she’ll do it again when the next child foolishly breaks those seals as we did. I was the only one who could stop her then, back when I was still whole. I don’t know who will stop her the next time, not unless I can find the key.

I know that the key represents the way home. It is the missing piece needed to make my mind whole once again so that I may return. Without it, I am left to uselessly wander these snowy fields, praying that I will not be too late, struggling desperately to unravel the mystery of me. Though I search with frozen hands, I make no progress, the whole world looking the same. I worry that I may have dug at this exact spot before. Perhaps it’s the only spot I’ve ever searched. I wouldn’t know. I can’t remember.

This time feels different, I think, as my hand touches cold metal. I pull the key from the snow. Already the new flakes begin to fill the hole that I’ve made. The key is large, awkward in my hands, a product of a long ago era. It feels like nothing my hands have ever touched and, in an explosion of color, I remember everything. The world around me becomes crystal clear... and I know that I can never return. 

Numbed fingers trembling, I place the key back into the hole, stand, and walk away. The memories begin to fade again into emptiness and not for the first time. This is a pattern I’ve repeated many times before, remembering each time the reason that I can never leave. She lives inside me. I’ve locked us both away, deep in the furthest depths of my mind, completely isolated in the dancing snow. I close my eyes and she is there, staring, waiting, biding her time until she is set free. Already, the only memory that remains are her eyes watching every time I blink. 

Blink.

I’m surrounded by snow, stretching onward, outward in all directions. I choose a spot at random and begin to search. Somewhere out there is a key--the key that I need in order to return.